This page is having a slideshow that uses Javascript. Your browser either doesn't support Javascript or you have it turned off. To see this page as it is meant to appear please use a Javascript enabled browser.

A Co-presentation with the American Printing History Association Northern California Chapter

Hospitality at 5 PM | Presentation at 6 PM

The SFPS is a group of artists and activists who, in the spirit of generosity and in order to make political action more enjoyable, print posters which they distribute for free. They use the silkscreen process in real-time and on-the-street during protests and actions. Some of their work has responded to issues related to the crisis in higher education; making a living wage; homelessness; and the death penalty. Hazelwood will discuss his work with the San Francisco Poster Syndicate.

Hit & Run Press was launched in 1974. Since that time, in addition to publication, Larry has collected books by poets and printers whose work he admired. Along the way, he has accumulated a couple hundred letterpress broadsides. Here, you’ll see a few treasures from his collection.

An exhibition of poetry broadsides by collector and Book Club member Larry Rafferty.

The chapbook is a form of popular literature printed, starting in early modern Europe, from the 16th century forward. Early versions were cheaply printed and varied from a couple of pages to a few dozen pages. Usually used to print short stories, political or religious tracts, or poetry, they became a favorite mechanism for publishing limited runs of personal poetry, family history, or short stories for limited distribution.

This exhibition will focus primarily on those produced by letterpress printers in the last century, featuring works from the permanent collection of the Book Club of California, as well as from the personal collection of the curator and several companions of the Moxon Chappel who have graciously agreed to loan from their personal collections.

From designing Snoopy calendars to illustrating Gertrude Stein for The Yolla Bolly Press, the speaker has stumbled from one mistake to another, finally arriving at the production of paintings, sculpture, and one-of-a-kind, hand-painted books. The talk includes the wife of the governor of Nebraska describing the artist’s work as “the dirtiest thing you’ve ever seen;” remembrances of an afternoon spent with M.F.K. Fischer (while illustrating her Two Kitchens in Provence); and the recent accidental sale of his book of Trump quotations (Hate Is What We Need) to Chronicle Books.

Joe De Yong: A Life in the West is the story of a passionate cowboy’s life in the America West during the first part of the last century. Over ten years of research has revealed the life of a relatively unknown artist/illustrator who started out to be “just a cowboy.” Joe De Yong touched the lives many in the western art world of the 1920s through the late 1960s. His was a life of challenges, including overcoming cerebral meningitis in 1913 that left him totally deaf. De Yong went on to become the only protégé of his artistic hero – the legendary Montana artist, Charles M. Russell. He also made a life in the movie business working with Cecil B. DeMille and many others.

An illustrated talk by William Reynolds, author and historian.

At the Women’s City Club of Pasadena, 160 N. Oakland Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91101

A Rare Book Rogue in Texas: The Crimes and Misdemeanors of Johnny Jenkins

John Jenkins was found shot in a river in Texas in 1989. Before his death he was one of the premier antiquarian booksellers in America, known fro his bibliographies, for catching mafia thieves who had stolen audubon plates, and for winning high-stakes poker games in Las Vegas. The dark side of his life showed itself in the many forgeries that passed through his hands and the arsons of his businesses which the ATF investigated.

A Rare Book Rogue in Texas: The Crimes and Misdemeanors of Johnny Jenkins

John Jenkins was found shot in a river in Texas in 1989. Before his death he was one of the premier antiquarian booksellers in America, known fro his bibliographies, for catching mafia thieves who had stolen audubon plates, and for winning high-stakes poker games in Las Vegas. The dark side of his life showed itself in the many forgeries that passed through his hands and the arsons of his businesses which the ATF investigated.

Murder, betrayal, cannibalism, and theft come to life through the fine press collections of the Albert Sperisen Library. Explore the darker side of letterpress-printed and finely bound books that hold tales of famed criminals, tragedies of eras past, and dangerously coveted volumes. From Shakespeare to the Donner Party, join us for an evening of intrigue and gallows humor as we tour these unique materials.

A members-only talk by Lesya Westerman, Membership Director, Book Club of California.

The California Gold Rush of 1849 took place at a time when the visual means of mass communication progressed at a rapid pace. Lithographs and wood engravings gave visual credence to the wonderful news that poured out of California. The presentation will highlight the feverish rush to the golden land, mining scenes, and early birds-eye views of cities and towns. Scenes of humor and satire will be included. The program will also feature pictorial letter sheets and color plates from Gold Rush books and rare modern prints by artists Barry Moser and Rik Olson.

Prints of the California Gold Rush
An Illustrated talk by Gary Kurutz.

Born in 1831, John W. Mackay was a penniless Irish immigrant who came of age in New York City, went to California during the Gold Rush, and mined without much luck for eight years. When he heard of riches found on the other side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in 1859, Mackay abandoned his claim and walked a hundred miles to the Comstock Lode in Nevada.

Over the course of the next dozen years, Mackay worked his way up from nothing, thwarting the pernicious “Bank Ring” monopoly to seize control of the most concentrated cache of precious metals ever found on earth, the legendary “Big Bonanza,” a stupendously rich body of gold and silver ore discovered 1,500 feet beneath the streets of Virginia City, the ultimate Old West boomtown.

Gregory Crouch tells Mackay’s amazing story—how he extracted the ore from deep underground and used his vast mining fortune to crush the transatlantic telegraph monopoly of the notorious Jay Gould. When Mackay died in 1902, front-page obituaries in Europe and the United States hailed him as one of the most admired Americans of the age. Featuring great period photographs and maps, The Bonanza King is a dazzling tour de force, a riveting history of Virginia City, Nevada, the Comstock Lode, and America itself.

A talk by Gregory Crouch, author of The Bonanza King.

A co-presentation by the 2018 Litquake Literary Festival and Green Apple Books.

“Before YouTube and social media, rock acts had to work harder to make a visual impact. One way to do it was through billboards on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood: Advertisements for albums that were gorgeous hand-painted rock dreams above the traffic. Photographer Robert Landau grew up in L.A. and, starting as a teenager, documented the large-scale images. Now his book, Rock ‘n’ Roll Billboards of the Sunset Strip, tells the history of rock iconography that shone through the Hollywood smog.” – Gavin Edwards, Rolling Stone

An illustrated talk by Robert Landau, photographer.

At the Women’s City Club of Pasadena, 160 N. Oakland Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91101

Written by artist and naturalist Obi Kaufmann, the bestselling California Field Atlas incorporates equal parts art and analysis in its loving prose, bright paintings, and unique, cartographic portrayals of the state. The book has been awarded the 2016 James D. Phelan Award from the San Francisco Foundation, the 2017 Book of the Year award from the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association, and the 2017 Gold Medal for Significant Contribution to Publishing by the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco.

With its unique structure and feel, and with hundreds of hand painted maps and wildlife renderings in watercolor, the California Field Atlas has found popularity with not only Californians already in love with their state’s superlative natural-world, but those who have yet to be introduced. The author describes the work as not only a love story, but “a manual of conservation, a handbook to furthering geographic literacy as a baseline towards a much larger plan for California and its collective, ecological resiliency.” Having spent decades hiking and painting California’s backcountry, Obi’s intimate and nuanced presentation where nature is the main character, resounds with love and hope, describing those systems of earth, air, fire and water that feed the deep well of California’s persistent yet endangered biodiversity.

Obi Kaufmann brings his book to the Book Club of California with an introductory lecture describing its purpose and structure. He will walk through the process of the book’s conception and creation and present a bit of what is next for both the author and for California.

This exhibit showcases California books in decorated publisher’s bindings from the 1880’s to 1920’s – books about the Golden State from the Golden Age of book cover art. The books in the collection vary in subject matter, they describe California’s “… romantic history, her picturesque people, her wild shores, her desert mystery, her valley loveliness, her mountain glory, […] her varied resources, her commercial greatness, her intellectual achievements, her expanding hopes” – as Edwin Markham so modestly states in the subtitle to his book “California The Wonderful”!

Ulrich Hacker has been a reader and book collector from an early age on; as his interests widened he began to appreciate books not just for their content, but also as objects of art and design – “handsome books”. This collection will contain several cover variants: variations in color scheme and gilting, titling, layout, borders, etc.

An exhibition of books on California with remarks by collector and Book Club member Ulrich Hacker.

Chinese writing is character based, the one major world script that is neither alphabetic nor syllabic. Through the years, the Chinese written language encountered presumed alphabetic universalism in the form of Morse Code, Braille, stenography, Linotype, punch cards, word processing, and other systems developed with the Latin alphabet in mind. In his recent book, Stanford historian Thomas S. Mullaney examines those encounters—in particular thousands of Chinese characters versus the typewriter and its QWERTY keyboard. He describes a fascinating series of experiments, prototypes, failures, and successes in the century-long quest for a workable Chinese typewriter.

He also looks the present-day and the future. Today, after more than a century of resistance against the alphabetic, not only have Chinese characters prevailed, they form the linguistic substrate of the vibrant world of Chinese information technology.

An illustrated talk by Thomas S. Mullaney, historian and professor at Stanford University.

A major figure in the history of the fine press book in California, H. Mallette Dean (1907-1975) was a prolific artist whose career as a printmaker, painter, muralist, illustrator, and letterpress printer spanned several decades. He designed, illustrated, and printed several titles for the Book Club of California and contributed initials and ornaments to dozens of books published by eminent California presses. In the tradition of other distinguished titles published by the Book Club of California, Mallette Dean, A Printmaker and His Art is a foundational bibliography and an important chapter in the history of printing in the West.

An illustrated talk by John Hawk, head librarian, Special Collections & University Archives at the University of San Francisco, and past president of the Book Club of California.

A major figure in the history of the fine press book in California, H. Mallette Dean (1907-1975) was a prolific artist whose career as a printmaker, painter, muralist, illustrator, and letterpress printer spanned several decades. He designed, illustrated, and printed several titles for the Book Club of California and contributed initials and ornaments to dozens of books published by eminent California presses. In the tradition of other distinguished titles published by the Book Club of California, Mallette Dean, A Printmaker and His Art is a foundational bibliography and an important chapter in the history of printing in the West.

An illustrated talk by John Hawk, head librarian, Special Collections & University Archives at the University of San Francisco, and past president of the Book Club of California.

Los Angeles City Hall is among the most iconic buildings in America; some say, the world. A bold symbol of the ambition of America and its people, City Hall graces California as one of its mostenduring landmarks. Now comes the definitive book chronicling its history, ​Los Angeles City Hall: An American Icon ​by Stephen Gee.

In the pages of ​Los Angeles City Hall: An American Icon, author Stephen Gee shares the dramatic saga of the building’s creation and showcases the architecture, artwork, and details that define City Hall in more than 200 lavish images, blueprints, and drawings—many of them never-before published. Gee also chronicles the effort to restore the building and the political fight that preceded its return to glory.

As Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti states in his Foreword: “So much history has been made beneath these muraled ceilings. So many people have walked these marble floors and transformed our city with their ideas, energy, and passion. And that work continues today…”

A talk by Stephen Gee, writer and television producer.

At the Women’s City Club of Pasadena, 160 N. Oakland Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91101

Between the gold rush and the 1906 earthquake and fire, new forms of visual media emerged and came to constitute a central means by which people navigated the bewildering host of changes taking hold around them. University of Chicago History Professor Amy Lippert will explore the power and significance of imagery in San Francisco—a city in the vanguard of the modern era.

An illustrated talk by Amy Lippert, historian and professor at University of Chicago.

David Wingfield Pettus has been collecting books for more than 45 years. In that time he has assembled what many believe to be the most comprehensive collection of nautical fiction in the world.

Like many collectors, his primary focus is on the great literature contained within the covers of the rare volumes he acquires. But, again, like most collectors, he cannot help but be attracted to the bindings, the illustrations, and evocative ephemera that naturally come his way in the course of his collecting.

This Book Club exhibit is dedicated to a selection of those items – visually resonant pieces that particularly compliment David’s love of the sea, the ship, and the sailor – art and artifacts that convey the adventure, loneliness, and beauty found on the “endless immensity of the sea”.

Buying and selling at an auction can be a great way to add to a collection or divest it of duplicates. For the uninitiated, it can be a daunting experience. Sharon Gee, President of PBA Galleries, will help demystify the auction process in a presentation that will cover a brief history of auctions, different types of auctions, the selling or consigning procedures, and how to buy at live auctions.

Sharon Gee is the President and CEO of PBA Galleries, a rare and collectible book auction house located in San Francisco.

Vance Gerry was an artist who applied his creative talents to many different interests and pursuits. Perhaps best known for his successful career at Walt Disney Productions, Vance also operated various presses during his lifetime. Although he produced stunningly beautiful books and ephemera, Vance remains largely unknown and undervalued as a fine printer. Please join us for a glimpse into the private life of Vance Gerry, one of Southern California’s premier fine press printers.

An illustrated talk by Robert Bothamley, author and collector.

At the Women’s City Club of Pasadena, 160 N. Oakland Avenue, Pasadena, CA 91101

The “Pre-Raphaelites” of 19th century England consisted of like-minded painters, poets, and literary critics who aimed to revitalize English art (and book art) by rejecting classical poses and compositions favored by the artist Raphael, returning instead to the densely detailed, intensely colored compositions of 15th century Italian art during the medieval and early Renaissance periods.

Two eminent scholars and book collectors will explore these Pre-Raphaelites and the Art Nouveau tradition, a style of art heavily influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites, popular from 1890 into the 20th century.

Illustrating Oscar Wilde’s “The Happy Prince” Then and Now
An illustrated talk by Margaret D. Stetz, Mae and Robert Carter Professor of Women’s Studies and Professor of Humanities, University of Delaware.

Collecting the Illustrators of the 1890’s
An illustrated talk by Mark Samuels Lasner, Senior Research Fellow, University of Delaware Library, Museums & Press.

You may think of pop-up books as children’s toys, but originally they were made for adults. The earliest known pop-up book dates from the 13th century and was used to calculate dates of holy days. In this exhibit, Mike shares a snippet of his pop-up collection with the Book Club; animated books that move when pages are opened, or with pull tabs to provide motion, and carousels with a 360° view. Subject matter varies, from fairy tales to the risqué, real locations and imaginary ones, and ancient history to popular culture.

An exhibition of pop-up books with remarks by collector and Book Club member Mike Jacobsen.

At hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of missions stretching from northern California to Peru, the winter solstice sun triggers an extraordinarily rare and fascinating event – something that Ruben discovered by accident and first documented in one California church nearly 20 years ago.

He has since trekked vast stretches of the U.S. Southwest, Mexico and Central America to document astronomically and liturgically significant solar illuminations in mission churches. In his talk, Ruben G. Mendoza, archaeologist and professor, will offer us insights into archaeology, cosmology, Spanish colonial history, and how the illuminations demonstrate the power of our instincts to guide us through the darkness toward the light.

For more than thirty years Magnolia Editions has been a vanguard in the field of fine art multiples, from artists’ books and works on paper to Jacquard tapestry editions by artists like Chuck Close, Kiki Smith, and Hung Liu. The studio also houses an old-world handmade paper studio which serves as a laboratory for Magnolia director Donald Farnsworth’s current main project: the recreation of Renaissance-era papers. Farnsworth will discuss his ongoing quest to reproduce the elusive texture and qualities of cinquecento paper at a large scale for contemporary artists and the many exciting discoveries made along the way.

A talk by Don Farnsworth, proprietor, Magnolia Editions and The Magnolia Tapestry Project.

This lecture tells the story of the fascinating Dover Games — a festival of rural fun begun as a resistance to the Puritanism of the seventeenth century — and of one special book which celebrates them. But more than that, this lecture will show the conservation of the binding, carried out by a renowned book restorer.

Printed in 1636, Annalia Dubrensia — the Annals of Dover — is an exceptionally rare and valuable little book, which celebrates the famous Cotswold Olympics and their founder, Robert Dover, who is credited with inventing the modern Olympic Games in England in 1612. The games are still held each June on Dover’s Hill in Chipping Campden, and are organised by the Robert Dover’s Games Society.

This is a glimpse into two obscure worlds — the charmingly eccentric Cotswold Olympics, and the intriguing craft of book conservation.

The best loved and most spectacular drive in California is documented in a beautifully illustrated artistic and literary journey. Lavishly illustrated with over 130 original full-color watercolors depicting gorgeous landscapes and architectural treasures, An Artist and a Writer Travel Highway 1 South is a thinking person’s travel guide for people who want to explore the history, culture, and architecture of the Southern California Coast—as well as experiencing the best in dining, lodging, and unusual experiences along the route.

A personal memoir of the Hunter and Stevens’ personal journey along the great highway, An Artist and a Writer Travel Highway 1 South records the authors’ explorations off the beaten path, their serendipitous discoveries, and their personal reactions to the places they encounter.

Founded in 1932, the Folger Library in Washington, D.C. is the world’s largest Shakespeare collection. For two years, photographer Robert Dawson and independent curator Ellen Manchester went behind the scenes to document its diverse, lively, and sometimes surprising culture. Their slide illustrated talk will offer a vivid look at life and work today at the Folger.

An illustrated talk by Robert Dawson, photographer, and Ellen Manchester, independent curator.

In her current body of work, Revenants: the Memories of Books, Meredith Miller, an artist and senior photographer, photographs what remains on the copy stand after she documents books and other material in her role as a photographer at Yale’s Beinecke Library. As they are photographed, the books often shed bits and pieces of their bindings and flecks of paper from their brittle pages. These remainders from rare works are at once precious and incidental. The resulting images are celestial–like with specks of white marking a black background and leave the imagination open to both the presence and absence of the object and in the process create abstract illusions. During her residency at the Weir Farm Art Center in Connecticut, she sequenced these images into a photobook. Presenting the work as a photobook returns the material back into its original form as codex.

An illustrated talk by Meredith Miller, artist and senior photographer at Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

Join the Book Club in exploring the Sutro Library and the Historic Collections of the J. Paul Leonard Library at San Francisco State University! The guided trip will share insight into special collections at the Sutro Library and the samplings of fine press bookstores, artist books, and small press books published in California that are housed in the Historic Collections of the J. Paul Leonard Library. Many of the selections reveal San Francisco State’s enduring connections to the local literary and book printing community. The tour will be lead by Sutro and SFSU librarians.

This evening will focus on the Trianon Press, Arnold Fawcus, the remarkable books he published, and the technique of collotype or pochoir printing as seen in the volume on display, “The Poems of Thomas Gray illustrated by William Blake”, in the Book Club’s Sperisen library.

A members-only talk by John Windle, proprietor, John Windle Antiquarian Bookseller.

Charmian Kittredge London married the bestselling American author, Jack London on a cold Chicago night, November 19, 1905, and immediately stepped into the critical, public eye. For the rest of Jack’s and Charmian’s lives, until Jack’s untimely death at the age of forty, reporters would follow their every move. She and Jack would travel the world exploring and writing together, but although the world remembers Jack London and his exploits, few know or understand the woman who was by his side, often driving him towards this adventure.

Charmian Kittredge London often collaborated with her husband. She wrote every day, only instead of writing fiction, she wrote books about her travels as well as sketches for inclusion in her husband’s books. But history hasn’t remembered Charmian Kittredge London in this way. For the past few years, Iris has been conducting extensive research and writing the first full-length biography about this complex and amazing woman. Come get to know the adventurous Charmian Kittredge!

A talk by Iris Jamahl Dunkle, author and poet laureate of Sonoma County.

Like many other German-speaking artists and intellectuals, German-Jewish novelist Lion Feuchtwanger had to flee his home country when Hitler and his Nazi party came to power. He and many of his friends and colleagues first went into exile in the South of France but soon had to escape Europe altogether as the Nazis drew closer.

The last station of Feuchtwanger’s exile should be Los Angeles, where he rebuilt his library of rare books for a third time and where he wrote many of his celebrated historical novels. The talk will provide an overview of Lion Feuchtwanger’s life and work, and will shed light on a time when Los Angeles was often called “Weimar on the Pacific”.

An illustrated talk by Michaela Ullmann, Exile Studies Librarian, University of Southern California Department of Special Collections.

Described as street photography in the wilderness, Yosemite People is a photography project and book by Jonas Kulikauskas. Carol McCusker, curator of photography at the Harn Museum of Art, describes the project best: “For the first time, a photographer is entering Yosemite as the WPA documentary photographers of the 1930s might, with a shifted priority on people rather than on nature.” The evening will also feature a small pop-up exhibition of photographs.

An illustrated talk and pop-up exhibition by Jonas Kulikauskas, artist and photographer.

A retrospective look at the unique and delightful work of one of California’s pioneering small press printers and booksellers, Henry Evans. Together with his wife Patricia and daughter Judith, Evans produced some of the most endearing letterpress publications of the 1950s, and his work was singularly influential on California’s small press movement of the 1960s and 70s.

National Poetry Month, which takes place each April, was introduced in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets to raise awareness and increase appreciation of poetry in the United States. This year the Book Club will support this effort by inviting local poets to read their original works as part of our open mic celebration of National Poetry Month on Wednesday, April 25 from 5:00-7:00pm.

Join us for an evening of readings by amateur and professional poets and spoken word artists!

A sign-up sheet will be available at the start of the event for those interested in reading. Readers will be able to share up to 2 poems and limited to a maximum of 5 minutes. Readers will be selected on a first-come, first-served basis.

A little over an hour northeast of San Francisco, in Shields Library of the University of California Davis, is the finest grape and wine collection of books, pamphlets, maps, archives and papers in the world. Join Axel Borg, Wine Bibliographer, and Amy Azzarito, Assistant Director of Online Strategy, as they highlight some of the unique items in the collection and discuss how the University Library is making the physical collections useable in new and innovative ways as we bridge the physical and digital libraries.

Robert E. Cowan (1862–1942) ranks as the greatest bookman devoted to California history as well as the first bookseller of note to specialize in the subject. He also served as the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library’s first librarian. In 1914 Cowan’s monumental A Bibliography of California and the Pacific West became the first monograph published by the Book Club of California. Lecturer Gary F. Kurutz presents an overview of Cowan’s illustrious career, the writing of his bibliography, his work at the Clark Library, and the heroic effort of UCLA to secure Cowan’s Californiana collection.

Join us for a ceremony celebrating the recipients of the 2018 Oscar Lewis Awards in Western History and the Book Arts. The Oscar Lewis Awards were established by the Book Club of California in 1994 in honor of Oscar Lewis (1893-1992), San Francisco author, historian, and Book Club secretary from 1921-1946.

Please click here for more information about the awards and a list of past recipients.

For more than four centuries, printers and publishers have produced and circulated single sheets of paper known as broadsides that were printed on one side and used as ephemeral announcements of events and proclamations, or for disseminating popular ballads and songs. The broadsides in this exhibit, as curator Carolee Campbell has written, “come from contemporary bookmakers who have plowed the field for years.” Broadsides from today’s book artists are issued for similar practical purposes as in the past, but also, and perhaps more importantly, are celebrated for how they bring together fine art, traditional and experimental literature, and independent publishing.

In this evening’s talk, Harry Reese will discuss how variant forms of the broadside have been a prominent feature of selected contemporary artists, and central to the work that he and Sandra Liddell Reese have designed and produced over the last 40 years for their Turkey Press and Edition Reese imprints.

This is an encore of the original presentation that took place at the Book Club of California on November 27, 2017.

Hospitality at 5 PM | Presentation at 6 PM

Based on a newly published book of the same title, this presentation explores the lives of three pioneering friars, Pedro Font, Francisco Garces, and Juan Crespi, who accompanied Junipero Serra to California in the last half of the eighteenth century. Drawing on the long-forgotten journals, extensive trail observations, and correspondence of the three padres, as well as the author’s own exhaustive field research, the presentation will provide fresh insights into the rigors of daily life on the frontiers of New Spain. These three Franciscans were the chaplains and official diarists of Spain’s pathfinding expeditions on the West Coast of North America. In the tumult of the Spanish crown’s colonization, Font, Garces, and Crespi endured terrifying storms at sea, starvation, scurvy, and lonely isolation as they carved trails through uncharted lands. Together, they explored a swath of the continent that was larger and more important than that explored by Lewis and Clark a generation later. But their exploits have been overlooked, because Americans are eager to learn their English past but largely ignore their Spanish past.

Why would a collector buy a poor copy of a book with an inscription to an unknown person rather than a pristine copy with a neat author autograph? And who were Elizabeth Robins Pennell, Alice Richardson, and Bertha Haffner-Ginger, and what is their connection to America’s greatest food writer? Book Club of California president Randall Tarpey-Schwed will answer these questions and others in his wide-ranging illustrated talk that profiles some of world’s greatest collectors of books on food & wine and describes the thrill of unraveling the connections that inscriptions can reveal.

An illustrated talk by Randall Tarpey-Schwed, president, Book Club of California.

Are you new to book collecting? Do you love books and would like to collect them, but don’t know where to start? None of us were born knowing how to collect books. We learn it by spending time with books, and by talking with other people how know about books – including book collectors, booksellers, and librarians.

This talk, “Book Collecting 101”, will introduce you to the four foundational elements of determining the basic value of a book – desirability, availability, edition, and condition. We will also talk about some ideas for beginning a book collection and options for building your collection, as well as how to know whether books you buy today will increase in value over time.

Producing a beautiful book is a labor of love. Every facet, whether simple or elaborate – the materials, the type, the binding, the selection of text, and the ornamentation – shows the care of its creator. But where the production is labor, the admiration is pure joy. For this event, we’ll be looking at some of the exquisitely made materials in the BCC Library, poring over details and looking at the design choices that contribute to the book as a harmonious whole. Materials will be chosen with an eye for group enjoyment, including playful typography and design, intriguing structures and decoration, glorious gilding, and (of course!) some Valentine-red bindings. Please bear in mind that for preservation concerns, the library is kept on the chilly side.

A members-only talk by Elizabeth Newsom, librarian, Book Club of California.

Catching the Light: Broadsides from Southern California offers examples of the mature work of selected book artists from Santa Barbara to San Diego. Charting a rigorous course – the braiding of intuition, craft and art.

Exhibition Opening on Monday, February 5, 2018 and on view February 5, 2018 through April 30, 2018.

To celebrate National Puzzle Day, January 29, 2018, the Book Club of California shares its love of history, literature, and the book arts with a bibliophlic word search challenge printed on the Club’s Columbian Press.

Join us for a hands-on celebration of the Book Club and National Puzzle Day with Li Jiang, Lemoncheese Press.

A limited number of broadsides will be printed. Participation on a first come first serve basis. No early arrivals. Doors open at 5:00pm.

Bret Harte called her the “sweetest note in California literature,” and Charles Warren Stoddard dubbed her the “pearl of all her tribe.” Coolbrith was crowned California’s first poet laureate in San Francisco 102 years ago, a gesture that also made her the first state laureate in America. Her first love was poetry, but she earned a living as a librarian, first in Oakland where she mentored Jack London, and later at the Mercantile Library and the Bohemian Club, where she was an honorary member.

Aleta George, journalist and author of “Ina Coolbrith: The Bittersweet Song of California’s First Poet Laureate,” will speak about Coolbrith, her love of San Francisco, and her constellation of literary friends.

This is an encore of the original presentation that took place at the Book Club of California on October 30, 2017.

Presentation at 7:30 PM | Reception at 8:30 PM

John Crichton presents the story of San Francisco bookseller and publisher Anton Roman (1828–1903), who came to California from Bavaria in 1849 to make his fortune in the gold fields. He converted his gold into books and became one of the most important and successful bookseller-publishers in the history of the book trade in California and the West. Roman published seminal California and Western American texts; he founded the Overland Monthly; and he connected California to the East.

An evening of poetry, music, and visual art envisioned by composer Graham Treacher. A Blake devotee since childhood, he explores his profound relationship to Blake’s poetry and visual art through his striking musical compositions, as well as those of John Milton Sr., and influential Tudor era composer Orlando Gibbons. These movements alternate with excerpts from Blake’s penultimate poem Milton, as well as his masterpiece Jerusalem, and serve to elucidate Blake’s obscure mythology. Anyone who has pondered the mysteries of Blake’s great Giant Albion, his visions and his prophecy of the “Great Harvest,” will enjoy seeing his story unfold. Originally performed at Kings Place, London in November of 2016, with two soloists and six instrumentalists, the piece will be recreated from professional recordings and accompanied, as in the original, by some of Blake’s most thought provoking images. This unique event was critically acclaimed in the UK and will be recreated in its entirety for one night only.

Hosted by John Windle Antiquarian Bookseller. RSVP to john@johnwindle.com or (415) 986-5826.